No Stone Unturned up for Emmy award

No Stone Unturned up for Emmy award

31 July 2019

A DOCUMENTARY about the Loughinisland massacre in 1994 when six innocent men were gunned down at The Heights Bar has been nominated for an Emmy. 

The ‘No Stone Unturned’ film was produced by Belfast-based production company Fine Point Films and directed by Oscar winner Alex Gibney. 

The 2017 film has been nominated in the Outstanding Investigative Documentary category and is the only production from Northern Ireland to be nominated this year. The film also caused controversy after naming suspects said to be involved in the UVF killings.

Six Catholic men were murdered by UVF gunmen as they watched a World Cup match involving the Republic of Ireland and Italy in the village 25 years ago.

The film looked into the atrocity which took place in the village when members of the UVF burst into the pub and opened fire on customers, killing six innocent men. Five others were injured.

Belfast-based journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, who worked on the film, were the subject of a criminal investigation over the alleged theft of a Police Ombudsman document that appeared in the documentary.

The investigation was subsequently ped after the reporters won a High Court action challenging police actions in enforcing a warrant to seize material from them. The court ruled that search warrants issued against the journalists had been “inappropriate”.

Both Mr Birney and Mr McCaffrey strongly denied the Ombudsman documents was stolen saying they came from a whistleblower.

Mr Birney — who produced the documentary — said he was “overwhelmed” by the Emmy nomination.

“The team behind this film, both in New York and Belfast, was determined to shine a light on this very dark moment in our history,” he said. “Alex Gibney is a master story teller and we thank him for bringing his immense skills to bear on this story”.

The News and Documentary Emmy Awards take place annually and are attended by over 1,000 people from television and news media, as well as documentary producers and journalists. This year’s ceremony takes place in New York on September 24.